Sunday Gravy: Future more important for Yankees than wild card berth

New York Yankees relief pitcher Andrew Miller can help the Yankees make a run at a wild card berth. But Register columnist thinks he’s better suited as trade bait to build for the future.

New York Yankees relief pitcher Andrew Miller can help the Yankees make a run at a wild card berth. But Register columnist thinks he’s better suited as trade bait to build for the future.

Photo: AP File Photo

Photo: AP File Photo

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New York Yankees relief pitcher Andrew Miller can help the Yankees make a run at a wild card berth. But Register columnist thinks he’s better suited as trade bait to build for the future.

New York Yankees relief pitcher Andrew Miller can help the Yankees make a run at a wild card berth. But Register columnist thinks he’s better suited as trade bait to build for the future.

Photo: AP File Photo

Sunday Gravy: Future more important for Yankees than wild card berth

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The other day I made an impulse purchase for the boy at the local sporting goods store – a tent. What 8-year old wouldn’t want to camp out in the backyard for the night? And I was right; he loved the idea.

Now, I’m no outdoorsman. The closest I’d ever come to camping was the time I passed out on a beach chair, which, aside from a blistering sun burn, was fairly relaxing. How bad could a night in our yard be?

Well, the boy fell asleep fairly quickly, not long before the evening’s entertainment.

First, somewhere in the woods behind our house, a pack of coyotes began yipping and yelping like the hounds from hell. Then came the chittering of a couple of nearby raccoons. This symphony of the local rabies-bearing philharmonic eventually died down. Yet I couldn’t shake the notion that the silence was merely a ploy meant to lull me into a false sense of security before they burst in and gnawed out my carotid artery.

The boy woke up refreshed and revitalized. He said it was the best night he’d ever had. I’m pretty sure I slept from 6 to 6:15. The moral of the story: never buy your kids anything that requires parental supervision.

• There’s still 24 hours left until the trading deadline, but it appears the Yankees haven’t given up on their season. At least not yet.

Sure, they dealt Aroldis Chapman, an expendable asset whose lightning bolt of a left arm fetched a few promising prospects. He may even return when his contract expires at season’s end.

But rumors they’ve rejected offers for Andrew Miller, including one from the Nationals that would’ve further bolstered a rather flat farm system, shows they may hold pat as the Monday deadline approaches.

It’s an odd choice not to maximize Miller’s value, or Carlos Beltran for that matter, especially when taking account of the current roster, heavy on has-beens and washouts, which may be within striking distance of clinching a wild card, but hardly a threat to make a serious run through the postseason.

• Yale will play the first true night game in the history of the Yale Bowl this fall. The Penn game is set for 7 p.m. on Oct. 21, a Friday night. The game will be televised nationally. Details are being finalized; an announcement should come this week.

The Bulldogs also play under the Friday night lights a week later at Columbia, another 7 p.m. start quickly becoming commonplace in the Ivy League.

• Bat flips, excessive celebrations, attempting 360 dunks while up 50 points. The mindset of the millennial athlete is as much about embarrassing your opponent as it is on winning the game.

• The month of August signals the stretch drive for everyone. But there’s added significance in Boston, which plays 38 of its 60 remaining games on the road, and are in the midst of an 11-game West Coast swing.

• Quinnipiac’s hockey team already lost juniors Sam Anas, its top scorer, and Devon Toews, its best defenseman, to the pros. The biggest departure may be assistant Reid Cashman, who accepted an AHL job with Hershey. In five years the Bobcats became a defensive force. Toews and Chase Priskie became NHL picks after a year working with Cashman; others, like Connor Clifton and Derek Smith, are thriving in the system.

• Farmington’s Nick Bonino, who led the Pittsburgh Penguins with 14 postseason assists, is bringing the Stanley Cup to Avon Old Farms on Aug. 11 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. It’s a free public event that will allow fans to take photos, though Bonino is asking those who attend make donations that will be distributed to charities, including the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

• A major is still a major, so it never struck me as odd that golf begins each season with its best event, the Masters, and works backward. There’s little entertainment value lost between the U.S. Open and the British. Yet the PGA Championship always feels anticlimactic; by far the least stimulating major. Why not follow the lead of tennis and flip the rotation so the season ends with the U.S. Open?

• Heavyweight boxing prospect Cassius Chaney (7-0) will spend the month of September in Boca Raton, Florida working with renowned trainer John David Jackson, whose best known client is undefeated light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.

Kovalev will put his title on the line Nov. 19 at the brand new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas against Andre Ward. Chaney, the former University of New Haven basketball star, has recovered from shoulder surgery and is being considered for the undercard, according to his co-manager, Guilford’s Allen Hadelman.

• The Walter Camp Football Foundation is preparing for its 50th anniversary celebration in January. Organizers are looking for program booklets from the first two dinners in 1967 and 1968, or for anyone who knew inaugural foundation president Jimmy Coogan, the longtime New Haven recreation director and Orange resident who died in 1971.

• White Sox ace Chris Sale didn’t want to wear the team’s throwback jersey, so he took a pair of scissors and cut them into paper dolls. The White Sox put business before winning, he whined. Of course, baseball players have no issues putting business before winning when they hold out or leave town for more money.

• To be fair, the White Sox asked players to wear their John Travolta Saturday Night Fever jerseys from 1976, complete with oversized, pointed collars. Maybe Sale gets a pass on this one.